It was interesting listening to new ANA Inspiration tournament director Chris Garrett and hearing him talk about what he might focus on for the desert’s major championship at Mission Hills Country Club.

Garrett comes to the ANA Inspiration after serving as tournament director at the 2017 Solheim Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. He inherits a major championship in the ANA Inspiration that features a great field, a great golf course, and history and tradition that other LPGA events can only dream of. But like many tournaments, the ANA has struggled at times for an on-course gallery.

This is a problem that has plagued other golf tournaments and frankly other sports in the last few years. Whether the problem is ticket pricing or the comfort of watching at home on television or just dwindling interest, many live sporting events have had to do extra work to get people through the gates.

So when Garrett said he and his team at the ANA will investigate family-friendly activities and other attractions that might bring people out to the tournament, it was hardly a surprise. Because that’s kind of been the way live sporting events have been trending in the last decade or so.

Consider what happened at the CareerBuilder Challenge the last two years, with the addition of concerts during tournament week. In January those concerts featured Huey Lewis and the News and the Goo Goo Dolls playing on the driving range just after play ended. And ticket sales did increase, with perhaps 8,000 people sticking around after golf or showing up near the end of golf so they could be there for the music.

What CareerBuilder Challenge officials hope is that there is a crossover appeal of golf and the music, or that the music-only fans might find themselves interested in the golf event.

We’ve seen this philosophy at other events, too. Football and baseball stadiums have taken on the feel of high-end restaurants, offering any number of different food selections that aren’t hot dogs or hamburgers. The same is true at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, where celebrity chefs and well-known restaurants offer food these days.

Some stadiums now have almost a carnival feel as you walk inside the gates, with sideshows and memorabilia and interactive games for fans before they find their seats.

None of this is to say that the ANA Inspiration will start hosting concerts or turn part of Mission Hills Country Club into an amusement park during tournament week. Not every tournament has the same demographics as the others, and not every golf course is well-suited to handle the same non-golf attractions as the others.

If the ANA is to add more family-friendly events or attract more casual fans, they will do so with the blessings of the LPGA, Mission Hills, tournament operator IMG and ANA itself. If they have any concrete ideas already, they won’t be sharing them for a while.

But when Garrett said people who are at the Waste Management Open, the reigning party tournament on the PGA Tour, don’t actually watch golf, he was right. The Waste Management event in Phoenix is a party first, a golf tournament second. Fans go to be part of an experience, not to be riveted to the flight of a golf ball.

Nothing about the demographics of the Coachella Valley even hints that the local professional tournaments could be anything like the Phoenix event. But looking to add attractions for casual or non-golf fans is never a bad idea. It will be interesting to see what the ANA Inspiration and the CareerBuilder give local golf fans in 2019.

Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsunc.om. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @Larry_Bohannan.

Buy Photo

From left, U.S. gold medalists for the women's national hockey team, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando speak at the ANA Inspiring Women in Sports Conference at Mission Hills Country Club on March 27, 2018. (Photo: Omar Ornelas/The Desert Sun)